SEARCHING FOR THE HOLY GRAIL AT AN ADULT HEALING CAMP

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Like modern-day knights of the Round Table, a band of adults came here on a recent weekend in search of the Holy Grail. But instead of riding mighty steeds, carrying lances and wearing armor, they arrived in station wagons and Jeeps, donned jeans and carried knapsacks and notebooks.

Transfixed, they heard stories about ''ugly hags'' who turned into ''beautiful damsels'' and listened to medieval music written ''especially for those in the throes of death.'' And they didn't seem to mind when they were told they may well never find the Grail, which some hold to be a superstition and others believe to be the cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper.

''The quest is its own reward,'' said one of the group leaders, Greg Stafford, editor of Shaman's Drum, a magazine that celebrates an ancient faith in spirits once so denigrated that it gave the English language the word ''sham.'' Variety of Courses Offered

Mr. Stafford was one of six people who led the course, ''The Mythical Quest,'' offered at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, a kind of New Age summer camp for adults set on 80 rustic acres in the Hudson River Valley.

Among the other offerings at the camp this summer are ''Crystals, Magnets and Vibrational Healing,'' ''Cooking as Spiritual Practice,'' ''Aromatherapy,'' ''Kabbalistic Astrology,'' ''The Joy of Self-Loving'' and ''Know Your Car: Basic Automobile Preventive Maintenance.''

Before the end of the summer, 7,500 people from all over the Northeast will have come here to take courses, a reflection of the nationwide interest in what has become known as the New Age movement.

New Age is an amalgam of therapies and philosophies aimed at a holistic, or complete, approach to healing individuals and, through them, the planet. The movement employs such strategies as astrology, hypnotism and belief in reincarnation, paganism, ritual and mysticism to achieve what adherents call wellness.

Similar courses are attracting people at New Age centers around North America. There is Interface in Newton, Mass., just outside of Boston; the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colo.; Holly Hock Farm, on an island off Vancouver, British Columbia, and, the granddaddy of the movement, the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Calif.

People find the New Age movement appealing because it offers an independent alternative to religious fundamentalism, said Dr. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Mircea Eliade Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago.

''There is a rebirth of a genuine religious feeling, but a reluctance to follow the dictates of one's own religion,'' said Dr. O'Flaherty, the author of ''Other Peoples' Myths'' (Macmillan 1988). ''These are people who want to take a religious journey, but they don't want their rabbi or priest telling them what to do.''

''People want stories that give them meaning, if not truth,'' she continued. ''Their teachers are saying: 'I won't tell you what journey to take. I won't even tell you how to do it. But I'll promise you that it is a journey worth making.' ''

Dr. O'Flaherty noted that even the recent return of the unicorn, on everything from Christmas cards to coffee mugs, reflected a new infatuation with mythology. Taking on the Impossible

The story line of the Grail, reflected in movies like ''Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade,'' has been echoed through literature for centuries: Against impossible odds, the hero battles to attain the prize, comes tantalizingly close, but finds that ultimately it eludes his grasp.

One version of the story has it that the Grail contains magical properties that can heal infirmities and grant eternal life. That Jesus drank from the cup is only part of the legend; later, the story goes, it caught his blood as he hung on the cross. Many modern religious educators, however, frown on the veneration of a magical relic and dismiss the story as a remnant from pre-Christian pagan times.

The story, as it has entered the New Age movement, has taken on some of the movement's other trappings, like meditation and the belief in reincarnation.

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John Matthews, another of the Grail workshop leaders at the Omega Institute, asked the 75 people enrolled to prepare for what he called a ''guided meditation.'' As he spoke the words, eyes closed, backs straightened, legs tucked under and hands folded. Some got off their chairs and spread out on the ground.

''I invite you to join me on a journey into the mystical realm of the Grail,'' Mr. Matthews, who lives in London, began in a mellifluous English accent. ''The walls of this room are fading away, and you are standing on a green meadow hemmed with cornflowers. In the distance there is a house with smoke curling from the chimney into the clear blue sky.'' It's a Living

Mr. Matthews guided his listeners past knights, hermits and demons, through the Castle of Maidens and the Sea of Dreams, to Merlin's Tower and King Arthur's Court. When they encountered the Grail, it was ''floating on a sea of light'' and yet beyond reach, at least until the next meditation.

Mr. Matthews, who has written numerous books about the Grail, said in an interview after the session that his books had sold so well that he was recently able to give up his job as a librarian and completely devote himself to ''Grail studies.''

Freya Reeves Lambides, another of the Grail workshop leaders, told the group that ''creating our own myths'' around personal experiences was important. ''About two years ago,'' she said, ''I found that apples echoed through my whole existence - well, not my whole existence; my whole earth existence.'' In another life, she said, she might have liked oranges.

Ms. Lambides, the founder and publisher of yet another New Age magazine, From Avalon to Camelot, encouraged her listeners to feel free and to reject myths that no longer rang true.

''If Judaism or Christianity has been a painful part of your life,'' she said, pausing for dramatic effect, ''throw it out.'' Borrowing From Pagans

The people who took the course were somewhat more cautious. Several, in fact, said they had found that mythology enhanced rather than supplanted their religious beliefs.

Norman Edgerton, a 42-year-old psychologist from Lincoln, Mass., said he often found the Roman Catholicism he grew up with ''too abstract.''

''It is so filled with rules and regulations that when you want to find something to identify with, there is nothing there,'' he said. ''But pagans were great about that. If you want to learn how to live, they say, go out and watch the deer or watch the bear. Learn from nature, uninhibited.''

Art Steinberg, a 39-year-old writer of children's books from Montclair, N.J., said institutional Judaism, as represented in the synagogue, had failed to satisfy his spiritual needs. ''The Grail is an inner dictate rather than societal,'' he said. And, he continued, its mythology is not far removed from Jewish mysticism, especially the teachings of the cabala.

Virtually all the weekend searchers were in their 30's and upward. There were several writers and psychologists, as well as a carpenter, a weaver, a painter, teachers and musicians. One woman worked in a health food store and read tarot cards.

The Omega Institute is affectionately called ''Camp Granola'' by some staff members. Elizabeth Lesser, the vice president of the institute and a founder 12 years ago, said a goal of the summer program was to foster new ideas that would not normally find a forum at a traditional educational institution. At times, she acknowledged, ''some quacky and flaky'' programs might turn up, but she added:

''We're willing to take the risk because usually it turns out to be wildly exciting and interesting.''

A version of this article appears in print on August 21, 1989, on Page B00001 of the National edition with the headline: SEARCHING FOR THE HOLY GRAIL AT AN ADULT HEALING CAMP. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe